


Nobody Around To Break My Fall (The Loma Prieta Mixtape)

by bessemerprocess



Category: Real News RPF
Genre: Gen, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14729774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: That hat is going to haunt him for the rest of his days.





	Nobody Around To Break My Fall (The Loma Prieta Mixtape)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Loma Prieta](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834) by [sarken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/pseuds/sarken). 



> If you haven't read Sarken's Loma Prieta this will make zero sense. I found this almost in exactly this form, and just cleaned it up a bit. I probably meant for it to be a much longer piece when I started, but I think it stands well as this tiny nugget of angst.

Keith goes to the funeral. He almost doesn't. Almost spent the day drinking himself under the bar or just hitting replay on his answering machine. Instead, he puts on his best suit and his good shoes and gets lost three times finding the church. He's still early.

He sits in the back. The church fills up around him. He watches these people, the people who are supposed to be here. People he assumes are her aunts and uncle and cousins, her classmates and her teachers. He's just a sports broadcaster. He's just a guy who bought her tickets to the Game she never made it to. He can't think that. He can't or he'll do something stupid. If nothing else, Keith knows himself. So he focuses on the hymns, letting the music fill his head.

The casket is closed, so he can't even leave the hat he'd bought her where it belongs. It rests on the dash of the Fiero, mocking him all the way from the church to the cemetery.

Standing by the graveside, he doesn't remember much of the service. Just that he cried, and that Rachel's father shook his hand and looked him in the eye, and never knew he should be punching Keith instead.


End file.
